Introduction

You may have been aware of the recent buzz surrounding the AI chatbot called ‘ChatGPT’, that was released in November. I’ve read about people on Twitter and Reddit using it to write their college essays and articles so I decided to use it to see how it can help me in comparison to Google.

Co-founded by Elon Musk and Sam Altman, ChatGPT was developed by Microsoft funded company OpenAI. ChatGPT automatically generates text based on written prompts in an advanced and creative way, giving the user a feeling that they are takiThe article explores the capabilities of ChatGPT, an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI, and compares it with Google's search engine. The author tests ChatGPT's performance on various queries, including email templates, factual accuracy, creative content, future predictions, jokes, image suggestions, recipes, and interview questions. While ChatGPT excels in generating creative content and providing personalized responses, it falls short in factual accuracy and image search compared to Google. The author concludes that while ChatGPT has impressive applications, it is unlikely to replace Google as a search engine.ng to a human being.

According to the company, in just five days of its launch, ChatGPT crossed 1 million users. But before I expound more on why it has captured our interest greatly, I’ll briefly explain what ChatGPT is and what mechanism it uses to give you magical answers.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) engine that learns how to detect and respond to human conversation. ChatGPT can understand the context of a message and respond appropriately, which allows it to be more engaging than a bot. It allows you to use natural language processing and machine learning to create a bot that can respond to user queries in a conversational way.

The ChatGPT by OpenAI app uses natural language processing (NLP) to understand what questions you are asking, then builds a set of responses based on your input. The app then evaluates the responses based on how well they match up with what you asked for, and uses this information to improve over time.

ChatGPT does not require any installation or setup on your phone or computer; it runs entirely in the cloud and requires no additional hardware or software to run.

The goal of ChatGPT is to be able to communicate with users in their native language. This means that you can use ChatGPT to get answers to your questions, or even help you when you're having trouble deciding what to do next.

It’s easy to sign up for ChatGPT — all you need is an email address. Once you’ve registered, the webpage is very simple to navigate. There’s an area where your results will populate and a text box where you’ll type your inquiries.

As shown below, the home page also makes mentions of some its limitations including incorrect information, harmful instructions or limited knowledge on certain events.

Either way, I wanted to see how well the chatbot would work as an alternative to Google’s search engine. Instead of Googling my questions throughout the day, I asked ChatGPT. Here are some of the questions I asked and how ChatGPT responded compared with Google.

ChatGPT vs Google

I started my comparison by asking ChatGPT about the best email template for requesting my boss for a leave. Here’s what it came up with:

My question: I want to send an email to my boss to request PTO. What should I write?

Not bad! Now when I turned to Google, the search results were a complete mixture, containing “tips” for crafting the best email, or 7 best templates to choose from. Few of the results even displayed an Out of Office email template, which I didn’t even request in the search!

The results mostly focused on the “how to write” part, which frankly speaking, wasn’t quite helpful for me as I needed a precise template that needed little customization.

Winner: ChatGPT

Next I decided to test ChatGPT and the extent of it’s accuracy. So I asked how many letters does the word “Sixteen” have. Should be simple right? Here’s how it turned out:

My Question: How many letters are in the word “Sixteen”?

While ChatGPT is great for creative answers, it still lacks in the factual accuracy of its results and varies answers based on user input. Upon my insistence that “sixteen” has ten letters instead of seven, it changed its previous correct answer.

Google, on the other hand, is quite accurate in terms of factual accuracy. Whether you’re looking for the date a particular event happened, a complex mathematical operation or a simple query like this, its answers are definitely more accurate.

Winner: Google

Time to get a bit poetic, and see how creative ChatGPT is when I asked it to write a short funny poem about programming.

My Question: Can you write a short funny poem about programming?

Google didn’t shy away from producing some classics. Here’s one I liked the most:

Winner: I’ll leave it up to you to decide it. Though I’m leaning a bit towards Google.

Next, I was curious to see how ChatGPT compares with Google on the future of web development. To my surprise, it was right on the money by pointing out factors such as increased JavaScript use (React’s growth is testament to it), increased smartphone users and a rise in cloud computing shaping the future of the web industry.

My Question: What is the future of Web Development?

When I Google the same inquiry, the results were all over the place, with the first search result indicating that no-code is the future. Others considered web development an industry whose growth is inevitable and linked to sectors such as blockchain, Artificial Intelligence and ML.

Winner: ChatGPT

ChatGPT even got some jokes! I asked it explain coding in a funny way, with a punchline. Here’s what I got:

My Question: Share a funny joke about coding, with a punchline.

Now onto the serious stuff! For any website, visuals play a very crucial real in adding to their content’s appeal and engaging the audience. I asked ChatGPT to suggest any images for this article. However, it was not very helpful in this regard.

While it did suggest Website names, opening each website and surfing through them to find a suitable image of Open AI or ChatGPT is time-taking.

It not being able to browse the internet or surf through images is definitely a drawback. Using Google’s image search, I was able to choose from of the most visual images as shown below

Winner: Google

Having a sweet tooth myself, I couldn’t resist asking how to make chocolate brownies at home. To my surprise, the instructions were quite detailed and simple to follow.

My Question: How do I make chocolate brownies at home

The best part is that it lets you improvise and explains the best way to go about it.

I tried running the same query on Google. The first recipe, on the website Love and Lemons was rated 5 by users and was quite comprehensive to be honest.

However, these results contained a fixed set of instructions and in case you want to improvise, or add new ingredients like Walnuts, you’ll have to run new queries on Google. This where ChatGPT wins for me.

Winner: ChatGPT

In the end, I wanted to see how ChatGPT can be helpful for companies in their recruitment process. I inquired what questions should be ask when hiring a ReactJS web developer. Here’s what I got:

My Question: I want to interview a Web Developer applying for a ReactJS position at my company. What questions should I ask him?

Google, on the other hand, was mostly filled with interview preparation questions and was not quite useful from a recruiter’s perspective. As a recruiter, questions mentioned above would give you a good indication of the interviewee’s mental agility, strengths, flexibility and eagerness to learn. Not to forget the tons of ads and popups that make you not want to visit a webpage again.

Winner: ChatGPT

Will ChatGPT replace me at the workforce?

Here’s what is answered:

Future of ChatGPT and will it replace Google?

Language models like ChatGPT are expected to continue to improve and become more widely used in a variety of applications.

One potential area of growth for language models is in natural language processing (NLP), which involves using machine learning algorithms to process and analyze human language. Language models like ChatGPT can be used to improve NLP tasks such as language translation, text summarization, and question answering.

Another area where ChatGPT may see increased use is in the development of conversational agents, such as chatbots or virtual assistants. Language models can be used to generate responses that are more natural and human-like, making it easier for users to communicate with these systems.

It's also possible that ChatGPT will be used in new and unexpected ways as technology continues to evolve. It's important to keep in mind that the future of any technology is always uncertain and that it's difficult to predict exactly how it will be used.

However, it is unlikely that ChatGPT will replace Google as a search engine. Google is a powerful and widely used search engine that has a vast database of indexed websites and a sophisticated algorithm for ranking and organizing search results.

ChatGPT, on the other hand, is a language model that can generate human-like text based on a given prompt, but it is not designed to search the web or provide information in the same way that a search engine does.